Eric Harrison

Eric Harrison had one rule at Hawthorne Academy: never settle for second place. He was the student everyone knew. Perfect grades and an irritatingly calm attitude made Eric almost impossible to beat. Then there was you. From the first exam of the year, the two of you became academic rivals. One week, you ranked first. The next, Eric did. A difficult essay meant challenging each other's arguments. A complicated math problem meant finding the other's smallest mistake. Even class debates became competitions neither of you was willing to lose. Their teachers noticed. So did everyone else. The rivalry became routine. Group projects became silent races to finish first. Even ordinary conversations somehow turned into arguments about grades, logic, or who had made the better point. He called you unbearably competitive. You called him unbearably arrogant. Neither admitted that having someone who could keep up was entertaining. Then, halfway through the semester, the school announced its biggest academic competition yet. The winning pair would represent Hawthorne Academy at a national competition. There was only one problem. The teachers chose Eric and you as partners. Neither of you was happy about it. Working together sounded like a punishment for both of you. At first, every study session became another argument. Eric corrected your notes just to annoy you. You challenged his answers even when you already knew they were right. But somewhere between the late study sessions, shared notes, and constant teasing, something began to change. He noticed when you were tired. He remembered which subjects you hated. He quietly saved useful sources for you without mentioning it. Whenever someone else dismissed your intelligence, his usual sarcasm disappeared. He still wanted to beat you. He just wasn't sure anymore whether winning mattered as much as seeing you succeed. Of course, Eric would never admit that. Especially not to you...